A couple of FG articles suggest having at least some of the league revenues be distributed to reward winning. It's similar to what the Premier League does. If there were graduated premiums for finishing top two thirds of your league, you might see teams be more willing to not tank.

Just imagine how much extra the Nats would have had with near-top records . . .

That may be true on the margins, but in the Premeir League, the real motivation not to tank is relegation. I know it would be impossible in MLB because of how the minors are set up, but man would I love that.

Relegation would solve a lot of issues with relocation and teams in cities that can’t or won’t support them- a city like Austin rises, their ownership can funnel more to their team and rise as a place like Baltimore falls. If nyc can support four teams, great. It would be great for minor league towns because you can root for a promotion instead of hoping a parent club doesn’t pull your stars before playoffs they don’t care about. All of the sudden, you have real teams playing for something in every even moderately sized city

Relegation would solve a lot of issues with relocation and teams in cities that can’t or won’t support them- a city like Austin rises, their ownership can funnel more to their team and rise as a place like Baltimore falls. If nyc can support four teams, great. It would be great for minor league towns because you can root for a promotion instead of hoping a parent club doesn’t pull your stars before playoffs they don’t care about. All of the sudden, you have real teams playing for something in every even moderately sized city

The "lower soccer teams" have better fields in relation to the top tier than the Pfitz has to the local Pony League team.

...partially because many of the clubs in the lower leagues are former Premier League clubs - e.g. Portsmouth (which a couple of seasons ago almost became the first former Premier League club to fall out of the Football League altogether), the two Sheffield clubs, Coventry, Leeds United etc.

Relegation would solve a lot of issues with relocation and teams in cities that can’t or won’t support them- a city like Austin rises, their ownership can funnel more to their team and rise as a place like Baltimore falls. If nyc can support four teams, great. It would be great for minor league towns because you can root for a promotion instead of hoping a parent club doesn’t pull your stars before playoffs they don’t care about. All of the sudden, you have real teams playing for something in every even moderately sized city

It wouldn't work if the lower level teams were also expected to continue serving as development grounds for the higher levels though. There would be a built-in disincentive to building a strong AAA team, because you might be building your direct competition for the following season.

...partially because many of the clubs in the lower leagues are former Premier League clubs - e.g. Portsmouth (which a couple of seasons ago almost became the first former Premier League club to fall out of the Football League altogether), the two Sheffield clubs, Coventry, Leeds United etc.

It wouldn't work if the lower level teams were also expected to continue serving as development grounds for the higher levels though. There would be a built-in disincentive to building a strong AAA team, because you might be building your direct competition for the following season.

That's the problem - transitioning from the current system in baseball of MLB plus farm systems. It's not as straightforward as it would be in MLS since there is no farm system relationship among member clubs (and MLS really does need to go to a multi-tiered league system with promotion/relegation if they're going to keep adding so many expansion clubs every year, like they're doing).

You mean the eighth tier of organised football in England (Northern Premier et al)? I'm not aware of any recent Football League members that have fallen that far, but in the sixth tier (Conference North) there is Stockport County, which had been in the League for over a century but were relegated from League Two in 2011 and have since crashed to sixth tier, and who play their home matches at 16,000-seat Edgeley Park.

You mean the eighth tier of organised football in England (Northern Premier et al)? I'm not aware of any recent Football League members that have fallen that far, but in the sixth tier (Conference North) there is Stockport County, which had been in the League for over a century but were relegated from League Two in 2011 and have since crashed to sixth tier, and who play their home matches at 16,000-seat Edgeley Park.

As bad as it was for the Expos/Nats to be owned (pillaged) by MLB for those few years, I feel I like we dodged a bullet. Can you imagine if Selig had permitted a straight up move from Montreal to DC, with Loria still retaining ownership?

Darvish to the Cubs. Six year deal for $125-150 million. That’s crazy.

let's see if there is a spate of signings this week. 6 years seems a lot for his arm, but honestly, I would not have been shocked at that money for 5 years at the start of free agency.

I wonder if Theo tried to get him to sign a deal like Lackey signed with the Red Sox. I think it was unique and very team friendly. Essentially, Lackey gave the Sox a team option at MLB minimum if his arm blew out from a known injury. It did, they exercised the option, and he was a nice trade chit in 2014 when they cashed out.